The Supreme Court ruled in the 1989 case Texas v. Johnson that burning the American flag is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment. This decision invalidated laws prohibiting flag desecration, affirming that such acts are considered symbolic political expression.
Trump is only doing this because of the backlash he received for making it illegal to burn the Israeli flag.
(Trump is only doing this because of the backlash he received for making it illegal to burn the Israeli flag.)
The Israeli flag!!
When did he make it illegal to burn the flag of israeli firster?
The question is whether this could lead to a court test that might tempt the Supreme Court to reverse its precedents on burning the American flag.
How? why? ya gotta be kiddin’ me ....
Maybe, maybe not. The First Amendment right to burn the American flag seems well established at this point. But what would happen if you burned a BLM flag, a BLTQXYZ+@ flag, or a Palestinian or Mexican flag — any flag of the current protected classes?
If you did this in NYC, LA, on an Ivy League campus, or many more woke bastions, the furies would descend upon you. It might depend on picking your spot, but there’s a pretty good chance you would aggressively policed, perhaps arrested, and likely charged with hate speech, incitement, and similar heinous acts of overt bigotry.
Given the Supreme Court’s clear stance on burning the American flag, you might eventually prevail in the courts, but probably not until you have fought the good fight through the courts for years, bankrupted yourself in the process, perhaps fired as your employer faced harassment by the usual tolerant liberals, and generally had your life turned upside down.
We clearly have a double standard at work here — as we do in so many areas — and double standards are poison. They invite the courts to articulate a general principle that is at least nominally impartial in application.
If the anti-American left can burn the American flag with impunity, I should be able to go to Gavin Newsom’s California, burn the LeftWorld flags, expect the local authorities to defend my right to do so, and sue the local authorities if they don’t.
If they desecrate or vandalize a church, I can do the same to a mosque.
Etc., ad nauseam.
Do American patriots have to riot and burn big swaths of blue cities to be accorded the same privileges the lefties now take for granted? The way we’re going, that may come.
Or the courts may intervene to end the double standards. DEI is already getting rolled back. It’s not inconceivable that flag burning won’t also be reconsidered. Hate speech is hate speech.
But a lot of folks around here are like six year olds: If the SCOTUS makes a ruling they don’t like they cry like little babies. This EO means nothing.